Your Views: With Democrats in control deal was best Ryan could do

The budget deal that Republican Paul Ryan and Democrat Patty Murray worked out does not rein in spending enough. But with Obama as president and Democrats controlling the Senate, it is the best Ryan could hope for. We can finally return to the normal appropriations process instead of mindless automatic cuts in the sequester.

If the sequester continued, our troops would bear the brunt of the cuts. The Defense Department would have to shrink our armed forces and make serious cuts to training, readiness and modernization.

The Bipartisan Budget Act will provide $63 billion in sequester relief, split evenly between defense programs and other domestic priorities, in exchange for $85 billion in savings elsewhere in the budget. This bill will reduce the deficit by an additional $23 billion in a smarter way, without raising taxes.

The bill eliminates waste and cuts corporate welfare. It reforms autopilot spending. The agreement retains fiscal discipline by preserving 92 percent of the sequester cuts, even though Democrats wanted none of them.

Ryan has passed three budgets in the House that would have fully paid off our debt without raising taxes had the Democrats gone along. This bill still allows too much spending. But with Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House, it’s the best we could expect.

I hope Republicans can take back the Senate in 2014. Washington must live within its means. Democrats’ tax-and-spend policies are crippling our country.